What's next for Oprah – and her book club

They call it "the Oprah effect" and it's hard to overestimate. Business Week once reported that the power of Oprah Winfrey's television book club to sell books was somewhere between 20 and 100 times greater than that of any other media personality.

Oprah told the Journal that the show – which would last an hour and air as often as two or three times a week – would take her out of the studio and around the world. "I'm going to take viewers with me, going to take celebrities I want to interview with me," she said, mentioning locales such as Egypt and China.

But Oprah's own favorite book-club memory (at least, it's the one book-club segment that she cites in her own list of top 20 on-air moments) is the audience member who told her that she'd never read an entire book until Oprah started her club.

It can only be a plus – for those who love books as well as those who sell them – to see that "possible book-club show" become a reality.

Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor's book editor.

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